PARALYMPICS; Encouraged to Compete

By LYNN ZINSER

Published: October 9, 2005

The first time he watched an amputee run, Sgt. Kortney Clemons saw his future.

He was not going to get his right leg back, the one blown off by a bomb on a Baghdad street in February. He was never going to play football, as he had in high school and college in Mississippi. Clemons was still learning to walk again when he saw John Register, the head of the Paralympics military program, jog around a track on a prosthetic left leg in April. At that point, Clemons's competition was limited to limping faster than the soldier next to him in a therapy session.

But Clemons's mind took chase.

''There's an Army World Class Athlete Program, and I want to be one of the first amputees to be accepted,'' Clemons said, his dreams now backed by a full-fledged plan. ''I want to compete for the U.S. and represent my country still.''

Someday, perhaps by 2008, Clemons wants to be part of the new face of the United States Paralympic team, which many believe may be transformed by soldiers injured in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Clemons was one of 34 injured soldiers and veterans brought here to the United States Olympic Committee's training center in September for an overview of Paralympic sports. Register, who changed Clemons's perspective by running a few laps outside Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio in April, had visited many others at their rehabilitation bases. Those visits introduced the newly injured to disabled sports.

The gathering here was the next step: pushing them to pursue sports as a way to a healthy active life and persuading some to chase sports to the highest level of disabled competition.

Clemons, 25, was an easy sell. In high school in Little Rock, Miss., he played football, basketball and baseball, and he played football at East Mississippi Community College before joining the Army and becoming a combat medic. Clemons, who was hurt while carrying a soldier away from another explosion, wanted to walk the day after his right leg was amputated above the knee. He wanted to run before he could walk.

During the visit to the training center, Clemons hopped from one sport to the next, from shooting to wheelchair fencing to cycling to sled hockey to sitting volleyball to table tennis, his path lighted by his own fluorescent smile. Occasionally, he would hop between them, not stopping to put on his leg.

''These type of sports allows us to know we might have bad days, just like anybody else, but we can continue to move on in life and still compete,'' Clemons said. ''You can't get stuck in that rut, start feeling pity for yourself and let life pass you by.''

Many of the soldiers here, like Clemons, were injured in Iraq. Others sustained injuries at home, or on duty elsewhere. Some were hurt in military training, some doing activities as mundane as climbing a ladder.

The Paralympics camp aimed to pull them together in the common pursuit of sports. The three days were held at the training center, the Army's Fort Carson and the Air Force Academy. Coaches kept an eye out for talent. Paralympics administrators explained the dedication needed for training.

''You get the full gamut of people who say, 'I could never do that,' and the people who say, 'I'm going to compete in the Paralympic Games,''' said Joe Walsh, managing director of U.S. Paralympics. ''We've got standards in any kind of timed sport, or lifting sport or distance. We have our national team standards so we have something concrete to point them at. Then we have to get them into a system at their local level.''

For almost all the soldiers, striving to compete in the Paralympic Winter Games in February in Turin, Italy, is unrealistic. But Sean Halstead, a 34-year-old Air Force veteran paralyzed in a training accident in 1998, left here aiming for the Paralympic trials in cross-country skiing.

''Rehab helps you exist,'' Halstead said. ''This helps you live.''

Walsh explained which competitions Halstead would need to succeed in to qualify for the World Cup race that will serve as the Paralympic trials this winter.

''I like to compete,'' Halstead said. ''I like to push myself. And I think what really pushed it was the fact that it's possible. Before my injury, I was an athlete. But compared to other athletes, especially on the elite level, I wasn't at the top. Now, I guess because it's a smaller population, I can be competitive.''

Like Halstead, the Navy veteran Gerard Ah-Fook was introduced to disabled sports by recreational therapists shortly after he lost a leg on duty in a small-boat accident six years ago. Register says Ah-Fook has the talent to succeed on the Paralympic level and has urged him to train in one or two sports.

''I'm taking it day by day, seeing if I've accomplished enough,'' Ah-Fook said. ''It's hard for me to say that I'm going to do that: I'm going to be a Paralympian. I kind of want to take each day as it is.''

But some, like Clemons, have trained their sights on 2008.

By then, Clemons said, he can compete for a spot on the power-lifting team, a pursuit he stumbled into when he began lifting weights as a rehabilitation exercise. By 2012, he envisions himself as a top-notch sprinter as well. Those are big dreams, considering Clemons was injured eight months ago.

''I got a chance to see a couple of guys on film, sprinting,'' he said. ''That was pretty inspiring. They were really running.''

It was late summer when Clemons finally ran. He said he worried every step whether his leg would hold him back, but he loved the feeling of the wind in his ears. Now, he runs twice a week, and he also lifts weights and bikes on a hand cycle.

''Being competitive is a good thing because you can do it for the rest of your life,'' Clemons said. ''We even compete with ourselves. Some days it's pretty challenging even to just get up. Playing these sports allows you to put stuff in perspective and just move forward in life.''

Some faster than others.

Photos: Sgt. Kortney Clemons, left, who lost a leg in Baghdad, playing sitting volleyball in Colorado Springs. He wants to be accepted into the Army World Class Athlete Program. (Photo by Matthew Staver for The New York Times)(pg. 1); Sgt. Kortney Clemons has tried a variety of sports: shooting, wheelchair fencing, cycling, sled hockey, sitting volleyball and table tennis.; Gerard Ah-Fook, a Navy veteran, was hurt in a small-boat accident. ''I'm taking it day by day, seeing if I've accomplished enough,'' he said. (Photographs by Matthew Staver for The New York Times)(pg. 5)